


Testosterone

by Lue4028



Series: The Most Dangerous Chemical [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Johnlock Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-22 23:46:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2526116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lue4028/pseuds/Lue4028
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock attempts to turn John gay using his undergraduate knowledge of organic chemistry. Drama ensues. Incomplete and in bits and pieces for now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Hey um… Molly?” Sherlock looks up from his laptop to Molly hovering above him and his curls fall backwards over his hairline, “do you think you could update your relationship status on Facebook and say we’re together? The mob won’t relent unless I’m dating an actual person.”

“As opposed to the textbook? I’m sorry, Sherlock. I don’t think I can. Doesn’t feel right,” she leans down, kisses his hair, and walks off.

“John?” Sherlock asks in quick succession.

“Hm?” John looks up from the homework set on which he’s drawing a Newman projection of cyclohexane. He looks at Sherlock passively, but then registers.

 “Wait- you don’t mean…”

John has become speechless.

“Please?”

“You want me to make all the girls in the class believe that I am gay?”

“For me.”

“For you. Gay for you.”

“Please, John? They waste my time in office hours. I can’t concentrate on work.”

John stares back at that bright beautiful blue gaze in utter disbelief and reluctance. But unfortunately the word ‘no’ isn’t coming out of his mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

“Sherlock, we need to break up.”

 

“I’d rather not, John.”

 

“This is worse than not getting female attention at all. I physically can’t do this anymore.”

 

Sherlock swivels around in his swivel chair. “Maybe we can fix this with chemistry.”

 

“ha.”

Then

“You’re serious.”

Then  
“What, like chemical castration?”

 

“I think we can do better than that.”

 

“You think you can make me gay.”

 

“I have a few working theories. Give me a minute.”

 

“How are you considering this? It’s not even possible.”

 

“John, science is not thwarted by what you think.”

 

“This can’t end well. Look, assuming you could do this… I would be attracted to you.”

 

“With a probability of ninety four percent.”

 

“Why ninety-four?”

 

“Not all homosexual males are attracted to me. The percentage plunges to twenty eight when I start talking.”

 

“Sherlock, are you not worried?”

 

“Worried?”

 

“I don’t know. Of what I might do.”

 

“Oh no, not at all. I could benefit from you being a little more possessive and warding off the mob.”

 

“But what if I want something in return?”

 

“John you never expect anything in return. That’s what makes you so useful,” Sherlock beams.


	3. Chapter 3

John shows up the next day, much to Essex’s disappointment, acting completely normal.

“’Sup.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Alright, you don’t like that greeting. How about ‘are you having any atypical biochemical responses today?’”

“Not really. No.”

“Maybe the stimulus is too weak.”

Essex reaches for John.

 “Do not _touch_ me.” John swats his hand away roughly.

Essex blinks at John.

“I aware you have no regard for personal space or anything personal at all but this is not the time or place for it.”

“Did someone wake up on the wrong side of the coffeemaker this morning?”

“It’s _bed_. People don’t _sleep_ at their _desks_ next to their bloody _coffee_ _machines_. God you’re an idiot,” John snaps at him, then tears off into the lecture hall.

“Testy,” Sherlock mutters.

\--

Essex looks up to see John leave in the middle of lecture. _His_ lecture. Usually John is watching him and poking questions and being cute but today he just leaves.

\--

“Hey, truant. I saw you skip out on lecture today. Are you avoiding me?”

John rubs his temple. “Okay, you really wanna know what’s _‘sup’_? I feel like I want to shag every blasted thing I lay eyes on.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Try me.”

“The trees?”

“The _sidewalk_?”

John is giving Essex a very pissed-off kind of smile. Essex is speechless.

“So thank you, Essex. Thank you for taking the problem and making it a hundred times worse.”

“Do you want to break up?”

“No, Essex, that’s not even the issue anymore. I’m not going to have sex with people and or objects under the influence of a drug.”

“Why not? …What?”

John is staring at him like he’s an idiot. Sherlock refuses to take the abuse.

“That’s how sex works, John. People perform sex because of the influence of drugs, they just happen to be endogenous, not intravenous. It’s the exact same principle.”

John scoffs and stands up from he seat on the bench. “You should hear yourself,” he resigns and walks off, throwing his lunch container in the trash.

“Sassy.”


	4. Chapter 4

John and Sherlock are seated across from each other on two of the concrete slabs running down the center of the track. John is eating salad out of a plastic takeout container. Sherlock is typing something on his laptop.

“Figures you’d be comfortable here.”

“Sherlock, you were the one who thought it would be a good idea to sit here.”

“And you believed me.”

John scoffs but doesn’t retort, defeated.

“I think you may be the more insane of the two of us.”

John doesn’t respond, forking his salad absent-mindedly and staring at the gravel on the ground.

“Why are you being so dismal?”

“I think you ought to know.”

“It was completely normal, what you did.”

“Somehow that doesn’t really help.”

“You can’t resent yourself for the actions of a drug. Despite your egotism in being human and being capable of thought and being sentimental, John- you are chemical.”

“The idea that some part of me wanted to kill you..” John rests his forehead against his thumb and fingertips.

“Christ, John. It wasn’t even that big of a deal. You apologized profusely, don’t you remember?” Sherlock closes his laptop.

“I did?”

“Yes.”

“While I was…”

“Yes.”

“You also,“ Sherlock is uncertain whether he should offer this information. “Kissed me.”

“I… I did?”

“But you said it didn’t work.”

“I don’t think,” Sherlock chooses his words with caution, “it did.”

Silence spans between them.

“Then why…?” John stares at Sherlock, after a moment of critical thought the puzzle on his face resolves itself, and he stops looking at Sherlock for an answer, relegating his gaze to the train tracks below. He looks relieved.

The train tracks rattle and they hear the approach of the train rumbling through the tunnel.

“Come on. Up.” John stands and crosses away from the impending train, toward the train stop. Sherlock stands and takes a step in John's direction but his gait halts in midstep, his shoe tangled in the railing.

“John –“ John turns back and sees Sherlock immobilized on the railway, his shoe concealed behind the metal. The blood drains from John's face.

Sherlock sees John's expression and starts laughing, removing his foot from behind the railing seamlessly. He steps away and the train rushes behind him. His coat flails in the velocity.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Johnis wearing one of his embarassed, irrepressable smiles.

“Really? And I thought it was so fitting.”

“You gave me a _heart attack_ ,” John informs him in no uncertain terms.

Sherlock continues walking toward the station, smiling in earnest. “You like heart attacks,” Sherlock dips his head back so he can look up at John. It occurs to John Sherlock is being unconsciously cute. He pulled that stunt because he thought John would like it.

“Yeah, well how am I supposed to enjoy it if you’re about to be smushed into ground beef?” John asks, looking down at Sherlock with a sort of fraternal tenderness.

Sherlock returns his gaze with radiant mirth. Eventually John breaks the silence.

“Get off the tracks, will you? Jesus.” John yanks Sherlock up to the elevated platform and suddenly they are nose to nose. The steel tracks vibrate again and another train rushes east bound behind them.


	5. Chapter 5

“Get off the tracks, will you? Jesus.” John yanks Sherlock up to the elevated platform and suddenly they are nose to nose. The steel tracks vibrate again and another train rushes east bound behind them.

 

John is face flat against translucent, light teal irises that span his field of vision, boring deep into his soul, dissecting him. Sherlock’s eyes readjust sudden and subtle motions; irises wavering in the slightest increments, shifting down, up, sidestepping, constantly searching.  His eyelashes flicker as they are displaced by the incessant redirect of his eyes.

 

John meets his closeness with a sort of awkward and uncomfortable reservation, but his dark, oceanic eyes betray a similar softness, eyelids heavy with weakness that is an exception for him. His mouth is parted in disbelief and unspoken objection. He closes it and looks away, moving incrementally backwards; this causes Sherlock to tumble slightly forward, an accident that easily could have been prevented with small effort. Sherlock brushes against John and John closes his eyes at the contact, his brows turning up slightly and his jaw going partly slack.

 

Their foreheads are separated by the width of Sherlock’s front layer of hair. “Sherlock- what…” His voice foreign to his ears.

 

John turns back to Sherlock, his hair checkering with Sherlock’s dark curls, which are crushed as John’s forehead inevitably leans closer in the contracting space. John’s eyelashes flash as his irises flicker up and down, intentionally out of focus, and eventually settling on the ground. He shifts his weight back to a more balanced stance and stables himself. Sherlock’s hair rides up against his as his heels fall flat, then down as Sherlock leans forward a fraction, a pang of pain capturing his eyes.

 

John, overwhelmed to the point of light-headedness, puts his hands on Sherlock’s shoulders and pushes down, pausing all movement. They stand motionlessly, fall leaves russling around them.

 

“ _Stop it_ ,” John whispers harshly, like a reflex.

 

Sherlock lowers his eyes to meet John’s, shifting slightly. John shies away from the texture of the freshmen’s long, drooping curls against his skin, tangling in his hairline. He can’t imagine how Sherlock can deal with that nuisance of a hairstyle everyday.

 

“Why?” Sherlock ventures in a carefree and untroubled whisper.

 

“It’s not okay,” John informs him vehemently. Sherlock continues looking back at him casually, giving John’s exclamation some honest consideration, but the sentiment doesn’t seem to stick.

 

“Why not?” He comments lightly, his face, his voice, smoothed over with an air of inconsequence.

 

“This isn’t a normal thing friends do,” John protests in distress.

 

“Oh?” Sherlock’s voice is even and smooth, but somehow still sounds like a purr, “Isn’t it?” His tone indicates he honestly doesn’t know, and that makes it all the more dishonest, because Sherlock is at his heart is snide, sarcastic, and seductive and that was a snide comment.

 

Sherlock parts to the left slightly, affording them a nudge more room but less direct eye contact. He turns his head to look at John again, his gaze somewhat more askance.

 

John closes his eyes against the feel of a few tousled curls gliding across his forehead and brushing against his ear. “You’re too close,” he sighs.

 

He opens his eyes again wearily and the game of avoidance resumes, where every natural movement or shift becomes an unintentional and inevitable nuzzle. John inches away from a the touch a of few stray curls adrift in the air, away from the subtle heat difference of Sherlock’s breath. Feeling stuck, he unreels slightly in the opposite direction and makes the mistake of lifting his chin; their noses catch. He immediately retracts, rotates his head away, annoyed.

Sherlock stares at him pensively, his eyes narrow at downcast angle. By mere stochastics, Sherlock's cheek glances his, nudges him back. The give and take continues for a duration of indeterminable length, at which point John decides he can't tolerate it anymore.

“Will you behave?” John practically hisses in vexation, feeling unrightfully tormented.

 

“What would you have me do?” His voice is candid enough, but John is irritated by the flirtatious wording of the question. And the contentious, lackadaisical look of calm and complaisance smiling on brunet’s face.

 

“Back off.”

 

“I can’t,” Sherlock maintains, sounding matter-of-fact.

 

“Why the hell not?”

 

“Because I’ll fall off.” Sherlock is balanced precariously on the edge of the platform, and yes, if he took a step back, he would fall off.

 

“Oh.” John mutters dumbly. He steps back, which is apparently all he had to do to resolve the shortage of space. He’s noticeably embarrassed, realizing that he is the transgressor, not Sherlock, and has been for the past several minutes of whatever the hell they were doing.

 

“Strange.” Sherlock looks at John with a sort of warmth and delight that’s very much out of season.

 

“What?” John won’t look at him back, gazing vaguely at some invisible midline between the floor and eye level.

 

“I kind of like the way stupid looks on you.” John’s eyes shoot up, looking very appalled, which they are very good at.

 

“Oh, shut up.” The blond retorts, blushing.


End file.
